Heating solutions are changing

The need changed before the appliances

A house from the nineteen sixties required several times more energy than a recent build for the same area. Emitters designed for those high demands no longer suit buildings that have divided their consumption.

What high outputs imposed

Concentrated, hot and noisy emitters, placed under the windows to counter cold draughts. The whole logic of the radiator comes from there, and it loses its meaning in a home whose windows are no longer sieves.

What low demands allow

Wide surfaces at low temperature. When the output required falls, it becomes possible to spread it over a whole ceiling instead of concentrating it in an appliance, which completely changes the sensation obtained.

The criterion that replaced output

The quality of comfort at equal output. Two systems delivering the same watts do not produce the same sensation, depending on whether they heat the air or the surfaces, and it is that difference which structures the choice today.

Control, the second change

A mechanical thermostat swung by several degrees. Connected control works within a narrow band and room by room, which produces a saving independent of the emitter technology itself.

What has not changed

The physics. Three modes of transfer, the same as a century ago, and a building that loses its heat through its surfaces. Solutions evolve because buildings evolve, not because the laws change.

The principle is developed on the passive heating page, and the comparison on the most even heating page.